CHAPTER XVII

SHOWS HOW WE ARE SWEPT INTO THE STREAM OF EVENTS

We had scarce been at home a day, when we seemed to be drawn into the current that was setting towards active warfare, whether we would or no.

Not content with doing her best to guard her own property, my Lady Erskine was diligent to lend what help she could to our party in various ways. Having heard from her brother at Perth of an expedition being sent, under Major Graham, to levy a cess, as it was called, in Dunfermline, which, being a Whiggish town, was not too ready to pay taxes to King James, she sent out scouts from among her trusted servants, who were to pick up information in a private way, and had orders from her to act according to what they heard. My Lady Alva being much beloved by the country-folk, and on good terms with all her neighbours, her people had little difficulty in learning the doings of both parties, and acted with no little discretion in several emergencies. On this occasion the force from Perth made the mistake of taking their way among the hills so as to avoid the direct road, and in so doing passed “under the nose,” as the Master put it, of the small garrison placed by the Duke of Argyle in Castle Campbell above the little village of Dollar. The reason of this detour we were never able to understand, for, as a natural consequence, news of the expedition was immediately sent to the Duke at Stirling, who ordered Colonel Cathcart with a party of dragoons to start at once for the threatened town. This coming to my lady’s ears, she despatched a trusty servant on a fleet horse to warn Major Graham of the movements of the enemy; and we all awaited his return with some anxiety, which greatly increased when three days had passed and the worthy man had not returned home. My lady was making up her mind to send a second messenger after the first, when early in the morning of the fourth day, poor Andrew arrived at the house, hungry and cold and much crest-fallen. Upon my lady bidding him into her presence, and asking the reason of his tardy return, he told a tale which caused his mistress much chagrin, and covered the narrator himself with confusion.

Colonel Cathcart, it seems, had reached the town before him, but not caring to enter it until the middle of the night, he with his dragoons lay without the walls in the dark, sending spies hither and thither to bring him word as to how things were within. Into this watchful company poor Andrew, all unwittingly, fell; and while they did not ill-treat him they took from him his horse, and by dint of threats compelled him to act as guide to those who would enter the town. This they did about two o’clock in the morning, and as it seems the gentlemen were all abed, and the watch very carelessly kept, the enemy were among them before they were aware. Some few were killed, and Colonel Cathcart took eighteen gentlemen prisoners. He did not wait to follow up his success, but the result was the same as if he had done so, for the startled invaders waited not to reason or to fight, but fled from the place on horse or on foot until all were escaped in various directions. Our poor Andrew was carried back to Stirling by the dragoons, kept in durance for two nights and a day, and on disclosing his name and occupation was liberated early on the second morning and bidden to make his way home.

I think I have never seen my lady so angry as she became upon the recital of this shameful tale. The carelessness and indifference of the King’s officers, sent upon so important a mission, appeared to her criminal in a high degree. Such waste of life and loss of property, where a little foresight and military precision would have saved all, rankled in her mind and set her brain and heart on fire. But angry as she was, it did not prevent her making the attempt to save another party sent on a like errand, under Lord George Murray, a week or two later, and this time her interference was crowned with success. Our good Andrew was again her emissary; and he not only succeeded in reaching the town in time to warn Lord George of the approach of the dragoons, but made the attempt by his own observation to further benefit our party a little. He returned to Alva without delay, and in high disgust informed his mistress that his entry into Dunfermline had been all too easy, for not a single sentry was set, and no opposition was made, nor question put to the visitor. My lady shared the good man’s righteous indignation.

“Are they _all_ fools in my Lord Mar’s army?” she exclaimed in great vexation. “Sure, never was so much negligence shown, or such ignorance allowed to flourish. I heartily wish we might take an example by the enemy, who, as you know, place sentries in all the passages of the hills within two miles of this house, when taking away my corn and straw. This news of their carelessness shall reach the Earl’s ears before many hours are over, for I shall write a letter to my brother this very day, with the request to have it shown at headquarters.”

Which she accordingly did, and sent it to the Master by a sure hand; but whether it produced the effect she desired, we had no opportunity of judging.

* * * * *

One afternoon in the beginning of November, having returned from walking abroad with Phemie and the little boys who were anxious to visit their favourite haunts before the winter set in, I found my dear Lady Erskine seated in her own room with a letter in her lap and the traces of tears upon her face. I ran to her, eager to know the reason of her grief, but she would not suffer me to condole with her.

“Indeed, I am but a foolish woman, my dear,” she said with a smile, though her voice quivered, “and not fit to be the wife of an officer immersed in affairs. Here is Sir John sent off to France at very short notice, and Heaven knows when we shall see him again! I ought to feel glad and proud that he is trusted with business of so great moment; but I must own the thought of being without him for so many weeks is very bitter to me.”

“Oh, and to me too, madam!” I cried foolishly. “The house is not the same without him. Pray, cousin, is this important business a secret, or may I know what it is?”

“’Tis not to be talked of to all and sundry,” my lady replied, “but you may see here what he says for your own satisfaction,” and she gave me the letter, pointing to these words which Sir John had written. “_Having orders from Mar to presse the King’s coming, and the sending over officers, arms and ammunition, and in particular to inform Earl Bolingbroke how much all these are wanted._”

“An onerous task truly,” sighed my lady, “and I pray God he may succeed; and above all that he may be kept from harm, and brought safe back to us who love him.”

“Amen!” cried I fervently, greatly impressed by the importance of Sir John’s mission, and realising full well my lady’s sorrow at being thus parted from her husband.

“I think the heaviest end of my burden,” said she, “lies in the fact that under the circumstances his letters to me may be long delayed, and mine may never reach him. You see here he was despatched upon the 28th October, and ’tis now the 6th day of November, yet this letter has never left Britain. Situated as we are, Sir John being an agent in the Jacobite interests, he cannot trust his papers and despatches to the common post nor, can I address letters openly to him, who has reason for keeping his movements private. This, Barbara, I foresee, will constitute one of my worst troubles in the coming time. It is no little relief for one so indeterminate as myself to be able to pour out my difficulties on paper to him who is my best friend, and to be certain of receiving sympathy and counsel and safe advice in return.”

“Sir John does not say when he will return, madam?” I asked.

“Alas! child, he probably knows as little about that as we do. My only comfort is, that for the moment he is out of danger, should the Earl of Mar decide to give battle as my brother in his last epistle gives a hint of.”

“He talked of the Earl coming south did he not?”

“Ay, he intends to cross over the Forth above Stirling into the Lowlands, and so march into England to join the friends there. My brother, to be sure, sees a hundred difficulties and dangers, the chief being the impossibility of making use of the fords in face of the enemy, for the Duke of Argyle has them very well guarded, and as we heard yesterday has cut the bridge of Doune which is the only way to reach them; how it will end, I know not. The country is already bare and destitute, and the poor folk reduced almost to beggary. They tremble at the rumours of a horde of wild Highlandmen being let loose upon them, for brave and loyal as the clansmen are, Barbara, they are a rough and undisciplined set, and were it for nothing else but to satisfy their hunger they must needs make raids upon many of the peaceful farms and cottages.”

“Truly,” said I soberly, “civil war is a grievous thing, and the working out of King James’s Restoration is not quite the exciting romance I foolishly pictured it.”

“They are to march from Perth by Dunning, Auchterarder and Dunblane,” said my lady, “so that we are luckily not in the direct route. But with several thousand horse and foot sweeping along in one direction, many will spread out over the hills and may even be diverted into this road to reach the south, should their passage of the Fords of Forth prove impossible. We can but take all precautions for the safety of the stockin’, and be you very careful, child, to keep close to the house these days lest any harm befall you.”

Not the least of the troubles for the country folk at this time was the wintry weather which now began, for a frost so severe and so continuous set in, that their privations were greatly increased. On the night of the tenth there was a slight sprinkling of snow, which was only the forerunner of the heavy storms that all that winter continued to fall. Aunt Betty Erskine, who was with us, suffered much from the cold, which with the sad state of matters in the country afforded her ample grounds for grumbling and discontent; but my lady bore it all with exemplary patience, her mind in truth being fully occupied with other matters.

We were living in a state of expectation, not unmixed with dread, for no one knew what might take place next.

My Lord Mar and his army could not, we judged, remain much longer inactive at Perth. Indeed there were already impatient voices heard condemning him for the lack of energy, or the excess of caution, which kept him from coming to issues with the Duke of Argyle. The latter nobleman was lodged in his own house at Stirling (the Earl of Stirling’s mansion, as it was still called, tho’ it had now belonged to the Argyle family for about fifty years) at the head of the Castle Wynd, and his forces lay in the King’s Park. His design was to prevent the Insurgents getting besouth Forth, and being a good General he kept himself well informed by his spies and scouts of all the movements going on at Perth.

I need not tell you now, who are by no means ignorant of the history of your country, that the remembrance of those November days and all that occurred in them is fraught with humiliation to me. The Battle of Sheriffmuir has long ago become a word of scorn in the ears of Whig and Jacobite alike. The tears caused by its tragedy (for no battle is wanting in that element) were scarcely dried, ere the humour of it struck the common people, who, whatever our English friends may say (and I have often heard the Scots accused of melancholy and gloom) are not slow to perceive the comic side of a thing. It became the subject of much ribald rhyme, and the great men engaged on either side were not spared by the rhymsters. But without stopping to give you my comments on this unlucky affair, I will try to tell you what happened in our own small sphere, in which I well remember we experienced as much excitement, terror, anxiety and amazement, as if we had been witnesses of the entire drama.

On Saturday afternoon, the 12th day of November, one of my lady’s messengers, who were posted secretly among the hills and on the roads, came in hot haste to say that a mighty host, horse and foot, was on the road between Auchterarder and Dunblane. Scarcely had we realised the significance of these tidings, when another arrived with the news that the Duke of Argyle had marched out from Stirling about noon, and was also approaching Dunblane from the other side. What consternation ensued among us! Were they each aware, we wondered, of the other’s proximity, or would they fall upon each other without warning? My lady, whose faith in my Lord Mar’s skill as a General was not so great as she could have wished, felt tolerably certain that the meeting, if it occurred, would come as a surprise to their side at least. She therefore sent off a trusty man, a shepherd, swift of foot and well acquainted with the hills, to find her brother who was with the Earl, and deliver him a letter in which she gave him as much information as possible of Argyle’s movements. This the shepherd, Allan Maclean, had orders to deliver to the Master of Sinclair only if he found the army dangerously near Dunblane and all unwarned. The messenger despatched, my lady set us all to work, preparing food, baking bread, brewing cordials, looking out old garments, and in every way she could think of making ready for emergencies should a battle be fought in our neighbourhood.

It was quite dark and about nine of the clock when Allan returned, not having reached Lord Mar’s army. He had been told by several of the country folk upon the roads that my Lady Kippendavie had already sent to warn them early in the afternoon, and the leaders had decided to bivouack for the night in a hollow place near the little village of Kinbuck. Here, as we were told afterwards by the Master, eight thousand men were packed into so small a space, that “it could not,” he wrote, “be properly said they had a front or a rear, more than it can be said of a barrel of herrings.” By the kindness of Providence it did not occur to my Lord of Argyle to plan an attack that night, otherwise, as our informant told us, the entire force might have been slaughtered almost before they could defend themselves. The horses were picketted in the small kailyards of two farm-houses, while the officers found quarters where they could in house or barn. It was a bitter cold night, the frost being very hard, and many a time I waked to think of the poor men of both armies shivering under the stars. But such privations were common, I knew, in time of war, and worse would surely follow.

The next day being Sunday, we rose with mingled feelings, not knowing what the day might bring forth. Very early came a lad with a message for my lady from the minister, to say that, “There wad be nae Sabbath the day.” This meant, as you know, that the church was not open, and that no services were held either at Alva or in any of the neighbouring parishes, the people all being gone out to _see the battle_. To my lady, ever of a serious and pious nature, this proceeding did not commend itself.

“For where,” she asked, “was it more fitting we should spend our time, or carry our burdens on such a day, than into the House of God?”

But as the ministers were gone after their flocks, no bells were rung and the church doors remained closed.

As the hours wore on, we heard from time to time items of news which gave us some idea of the proceedings taking place within a few miles of the house. A spur of the Ochils, as you will remember, lies between Alva and Dunblane, but by climbing the hills a good view could be had of all the country round. On a clear winter day, such as this was, one could see for many miles, and it was plain to our watchers that about noon the two armies had met on the rising ground of Sheriffmuir and that the fighting had begun. The noise of the cannon and fusils was plain to be heard in the frosty air, and sent panic into our hearts, for we were new to the idea of war; and now that the worst had come, I, for one, was no more anxious for the destruction of the Government troops than of those on our own side. Oh, indeed I fear that little of the world’s fighting would have been done had it been left to the women to decide, and yet I know not in truth if they could have devised any better method for settling many difficulties.

With my lady’s leave, I climbed the hill in company with Mr. Rose, the grieve, and sat there during the short afternoon, my eyes fixed upon the distant scene in a strange turmoil of hope and fear. Little could I see save the smoke of the guns, and masses of men moving or running among the undulating hills, in what seemed a very aimless way. But the noise of the firing, the clash of steel, the wild hoarse cries of the Highlanders as they rushed on their foes, made strange clamour in the peaceful upper air of that un-Sabbathlike Sunday afternoon. It would require the pen of a person skilled in warfare to explain the movements of both armies from so great a distance, for to me it was mostly confusion, and I scarce knew what I expected to see when I begged to be allowed to climb the hill. Perhaps I imagined a mighty host from the north rushing furiously upon the Government troops, so that in the course of an hour or so they should be completely annihilated, or only a remnant left to cry quarter, as the Earl of Mar pushed triumphant on to Stirling Castle. If so, I was mightily disappointed, for as dusk fell it seemed that the fighting ceased; both parties appeared to stand at gaze, motionless themselves, but watching for the movements of the other. Then Argyle’s men were seen to draw off along the road to Dunblane, and the Earl of Mar’s army marched slowly away northwards towards Ardoch.

“Is it finished?” I cried to Mr. Rose, rising to my feet. “Is this all? Which side has won? Will they fight again to-morrow?”

For so quickly had the end come, that I was plunged in amazement and perplexity, and could scarce realise that I had been witness of a genuine battle.

The grieve shook his head doubtfully.

“Deed, missy, I couldna say,” he answered. “But it’s time ye were back in the hoose wi’ my lady, I’m thinkin’.”

And stiff with the cold, and burdened with a dull weight of apprehension which I did not understand, I made my way down the hill which was now shrouded in darkness.

I found the house in the deepest gloom, for to my surprise not a lantern or taper had been lit, and as I mounted the stairs I heard the sound of loud weeping coming from one of the rooms of which the door was open. I entered quickly and a curious scene met my eyes. My lady was seated upon a couch, little Hal whimpering on her knees, while Charles leant against her side and gazed fearfully up in her face. Phemie stood silent and grim beside her, while all the other women of the house, some in attitudes of despair upon the floor, some supporting each other in their arms, were sobbing and wailing as if the last day had come. My lady’s face was a study, so white, so set, so stern, and with eyes fixed in a stare so fateful, that for a moment my heart was in my mouth, as the saying is, and I imagined nothing less than that the awful tidings of the death of Sir John had reached her. At the thought I rushed into the room, crying out,

“For Heaven’s sake, madam, what is amiss? Pray, Phemie, bid those women hold their peace, and tell me what has happened. Is it Sir John? Why looks my lady so?”

While Phemie tried to quiet the maids, my lady turned to answer me, and the effort seemed to break the frozen spell that held her, for the tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her face.

“Oh, Barbara, did you not see--have you not heard? The battle is over and Argyle hath vanquished Mar, whose army is broken and fleeing to the hills. The Cause is lost, my girl, and we are undone. The kindest thing to do now is to stop the King from coming over, and did I but know where to address Sir John, I would send a despatch to France this very night.”

Utterly bewildered I tried to put into sane words what I had just witnessed from the hill, but as I spoke I felt that I was not convincing my audience.

“A battle there was surely, madam,” I said, “but indeed there was no rout of my Lord Mar’s army. It drew off when the dusk fell as orderly as the other, and if I am not mistaken they have but retired for the night to fight again to-morrow.”

Even while they looked at me, trying to take in my words of hope, a clamour arose in the courtyard, and a great voice shouted, “Hurrah!” I flew to the window, and opening it wide, leaned out. A group of men holding torches were round the door, and among them I could see the shepherd, Allan Maclean, who appeared to have but just arrived among them.

“What news?” I cried. “What news, men? Is it Allan Maclean that has brought them?”

The men looked up, and seeing that my lady had joined me, surrounded by the agitated women, they tossed their bonnets into the air, shouting,

“Victory, my leddy, victory for my Lord Mar! A gran’ fecht, and Argyle’s beaten! Lang live King Jamie, and doun wi’ German Geordie.”

Now on hearing these cries, my lady turned and caught my hand, and we looked in each other’s faces, perplexed; and there was something so whimsical in the occurrence (also the relief of the reaction was so great), that we both burst out laughing, and stood there swaying to and fro till we became exhausted with our mirth and were obliged to stop.

“Sure,” said my dear lady, wiping her eyes, “this is the strangest battle that ever was fought, where both sides claim the victory, and neither has suffered defeat. For the Stirling folk, we are told, are rejoicing over their success as heartily as Allan Maclean, and have already spread abroad about the town that my Lord Mar’s forces are utterly broken.”

“That,” cried I, “I am convinced they are not; but how far the rest is true or untrue I fear we must wait till the morrow to learn. Oh, madam, ’tis pity that the field lies so far from us--there must be many wounded and dying. To think of them lying out in this bitter cold nigh breaks my heart. Pray God none of your own people are among them!”

“Alas!” she sighed, “if all is not well with them, they are either dead or taken prisoners. But I would fain succour the others, even as you would, Barbara, were we not too distant here. To-morrow we must see what can be done. Ah, my dear, how could we laugh so heartily just now, when some of our kindest neighbours and friends may be lying stark and stiff on Sheriffmuir?”

And I hope you will not despise us when you hear that upon that we both sat down and wept.